Further proof that Morning Musume are world-famous idols

(TL note: the subtitles say that he’s a medical student from Austria and that he loves Japan and Japanese music. He then specifically says he loves idols and Morning Musume and starts singing Maji desu ka Ska. Someone on 2ch provided a download of this short clip, enjoy it while it lasts (just click the button).)

4：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 17:20:59.86 ID:0 What show is this?

7：俯瞰の鬼 ◆0d6BWgzbeA ：2013/02/21(木) 17:21:57.88 ID:0 I would’ve wanted them to just focus on this guy.

8：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 17:22:18.73 ID:0 He looks cool even though he’s a wota.

9：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 17:22:44.73 ID:0Wow!

10：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 17:23:22.13 ID:0 Anyone seen him at concerts?

12：俯瞰の鬼 ◆0d6BWgzbeA ：2013/02/21(木) 17:23:46.68 ID:0 It’s a show that interviews foreigners who are at the airport.
Sometimes they also focus on select people.

23：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 17:26:41.16 ID:0There’s always lots of foreigners at Nakano Sunplaza during the Golden Week concerts.
I think it’d be fun if they did a TV report on it.

24：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 17:27:04.58 ID:0Awesome.

30：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 17:29:38.55 ID:0 What foreigners care about is the Momusu during and after Joshi Kashimashi Monogatari, no?

34：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 17:31:06.97 ID:0>>30
That’s so weird to me how information about them keeps circulating worldwide, and yet in Japan it’s like it stopped with Love Machine.

37：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 17:33:25.47 ID:0>>34
I always think it’s just our media not doing their research. There are members that really gained popularity thanks to YouTube opening in 2006. They’d know that if only they just looked into it a tiny bit.

38：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 17:35:46.18 ID:0>>37
The closed country of Japan doing what it does best!

40：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 17:37:21.69 ID:0 It was years ago, but I remember seeing some foreign TV show that showed the Kashimashi PV from YouTube. I think it’s ever since then that their popularity outside of Japan has been on the rise. At their Paris performance, more so than Love Machine or The Peace it was the newer songs that got a great reception.

45：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 17:40:12.74 ID:0>>40
Some people are saying that it started with an American TV show that showed a Christmas-themed clip with the 13 of them. It was the thing where they attached pieces of meat on their heads that they then put inside a cage with a komodo dragon, and their reactions were all “Japanese people are crazy.” The Joshi Kashimashi thing came afterwards.

44：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 17:39:32.28 ID:OI think this was around 2 or 3 years ago. They showed a segment on TV about Japanese idols being popular amongst foreigners. They were doing interviews on the street where the foreigners were saying “Momusu”, and yet later in the studio they were just doing AKB choreography practice.

47：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 17:43:44.13 ID:T That reminds me. There’s this show in Kansai called Chichinpuipui that has a corner where they show foreigners around and one time it had a person who liked Momusu. I bet that the foreigners who do know Momusu are a minority though.

49：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 17:44:48.65 ID:0 The people that get it, get it.
It’s become like fine arts.

52：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 17:46:21.95 ID:0 If it’s someone from the capital of music, Austria, saying it, it means they must be the best in the world.

54：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 17:49:27.48 ID:0 Momusu is Japan’s pride.

56：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 17:50:38.71 ID:0 I’m happy I became a fan of Momusu.

79：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 17:59:06.70 ID:O The Peanuts were popular in Austria in the 60’s when a singer called Caterina Valente invited them over. And not just Austria, but they also appeared on music programs in Germany and Switzerland.
They even put out a German single and album in Austria.

82：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 18:00:45.47 ID:0 It’s not weird for someone coming to Japan to know Morning Musume.
They’re coming here because they have an interest in Japan after all.

That just speaks volumes.
They’ve made it so that it’s difficult to say that you like Morning Musume.
The interviewer is making the wota sound like he’s saying “I’m sorry (that it’s not AKB I like).“

99：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 18:12:32.64 ID:0 I’m moved to tears by the fact that the medical student wota is singing the song that was the first release of the Momusu of today. This direction that they’re going for now is not a mistake.

101：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 18:13:11.84 ID:0 Mr. Moonlight seems like a song that’d be popular among foreigners.

102：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 18:13:23.87 ID:0 If this wasn’t TV Tokyo, they would’ve cut this part out.

120：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 18:22:58.73 ID:0 It feels like the Kashimashi and Sakura Mankai PV’s on YouTube upped their popularity.

134：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 18:28:26.47 ID:0 Momusu are winning the race abroad by such a margin, I almost feel bad.

136：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 18:29:06.92 ID:0 You guys don’t know it but it wasn’t just yesterday’s broadcast, they’ve had foreigners who are Momusu wota appearing ever since the first episode. (laughs)

146：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 18:32:22.67 ID:0>>136
I feel like I’ve seen some, too. I’ve gotten used to foreign Momusu wota so it doesn’t faze me anymore.

253：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 20:03:33.45 ID:0 For foreigners, their main source of information is YouTube, and H!P has no edge over AKB’s skillful way of carpet bombing on on that site. But even then the foreign wota choose H!P.

260：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 20:07:14.27 ID:0>>253
Quality over quantity and all that…

272：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 20:13:34.99 ID:0 Handshake tickets and the tight control over domestic media are things that can’t cross seas over YouTube. Stuff like Perfume and H!P is good even if all you have is video material.

274：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 20:18:02.34 ID:0 The quality of music compared to AKB is just so huge.

305：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 20:47:15.03 ID:0 Morning Musume is just the more stylish thing overseas right now. That’s all it is.

306：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 20:47:53.15 ID:0 I’ve never seen a foreigner say they like AKB.

310：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 20:50:16.93 ID:0AKB’s way of thinking of singing their songs in the local language when they’re doing shows overseas is old and simple-minded. Those people came to like them by watching them sing and dance in Japanese on YouTube, so everything aside from MC’s should be in Japanese like how Momusu do it. Would you feel glad to see a performance of Lady Gaga singing her songs with hopelessly shitty Japanese?

322：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 20:58:10.87 ID:0 Did you guys know there are foreign wota who started learning Japanese because they wanted to know the accurate nuances behind Tsunku’s lyrics? There was a segment on Mezamashi TV where they showed Musume wota at their Paris performance and their Japanese was really good.

341：名無し募集中。。。：2013/02/21(木) 21:14:28.67 ID:0

(TL note: they’re asking if Kyary Pamyu Pamyu is hard to pronounce. The French guy replies “No it’s not. There are much harder names to pronounce, like Morning Musume’s Michishige Sayumi.“)

Henkka: Phew. All kinds of things going on in this thread. Compliments towards the Austrian guy and the country in general, the Japanese fans admiring how open the flow of information on Momusu seems to be overseas, some trips down memory lane as to when H!P started getting popular overseas… and finally the inevitable conclusion of these kinds of threads: a Momusu vs. AKB shit-throwing fest, with the majority of opinions being pro-Momusu of course, seeing as it is a H!P board. Probably also the reason for #306 saying he’s never seen a foreigner who likes AKB — if this was the AKB board, I’m sure there’d be plenty. Personally? My highlight was someone calling Tsunku the Beethoven of Osaka. Nice. I dig that.

Well Morning Musume were pretty much the only japan idol girl group that was popular until AKB came. Thanks to the awesome subbers pike you we get to know them better =] Thanks for the translation i wish i could understand Japanese too =D

I find it so strange that they know so little about us. It’s like we live in a separate world, so far away that when someone goes there, and happens to know even a tiny bit about them, it’s an event. lol They probably have no idea about fansubbers and such…

@Alisa It’s not that odd if you consider how little WE know about the French-speaking fan community. There’s an undoubtedly a pretty sizable number of them, but aside from the occasional French-speaking forum member and occasional French subbed video, how much do you know about them? This is just an example, but I think you see my point.

There’s entire communities within the international fan base that we know virtually nothing about just because they don’t speak English. Despite how much material we share in common, there’s so little cross-language communication among us that we tend to think of the English-speaking online community as the whole international fanbase. But that’s just because of how widespread English is. French-speaking and Mandarin-speaking fans are of sufficient numbers that there’s almost no reason for them to go to English-speaking sites. It’s like they’re invisible to us, but they undoubtedly exist.

By the way, I think the Beethoven nickname for Tsunku came from the episode of Mechaike with the Okajo Chorus Club. (c. 2004) They had an older guy who said he was like Mozart and Tsunku was Beethoven.

I notice that you didn’t explain “akekasu”
If you haven’t did it in a previous post, akekasu refers to over-zealous AKB fan that resides in 2ch. Never seen the term spoken when i went to Japan. And its also a derogatory term so I wouldn’t recommend to use it in casual conversation with other idol fans

@Slack: That’s a good point you made about us simply not knowing about all of the non-English speaking foreign fans. I recently ran across a Spanish (I think it was) translation of one my earlier Ohatsuu highlight posts, and it had a huge amount of comments — probably to the point where, like you said, there’s really no need for them to force themselves to speak English on H!O when they have easily enough Spanish speakers to keep themselves busy. Call me stupid, but I’d no idea they had such a huge community. Likewise, I wouldn’t except the Japanese to have too much of an idea as to what we’re up to.

@Don: Whoops! You’re right, I forgot to put in the TL note. Thanks for the heads-up.

I think the best thing to do is go on Alexa and look up some of the audiences for H!O and Stage48 and the like, you’ll see that France, Mexico and Indonesia make up a huge percentage of the fans, though most of them probably only use the tracker. It’s the same on LI, I have a huge percentage of Indonesians and Russians reading it, though for obvious reasons US and UK are on top.

And Morning Musume is not popular here. And Austrian people don’t have a special “sense” for music. We also don’t listen to classical music that much (I have the feeling that Japanese people listen to it a lot more!). People always think that, but sorry, I have to disappoint you. And Beethoven actually is not from Austria. xD

I started listening to Momusu just after the release of Memory Seishun no Hikari. Nacchi and Johnson were hot in that. From there, just kept following them. Wasn’t until maybe 2008, when I started getting into Berryz and C-ute.